Under the Tyrrhenian Sea off the southwest part of Italy lies a volcanic mosaic with flat-topped seamounts and dotted with what can be likened to geothermal chimneys. Geologically, the complex nature of this newly discovered underwater structure is new that researchers believe it only dates back up to 780,000 years ago. Though the area has been a home to volcanoes like Mount Etna and Mount Vesuvius, the new structure has been deemed complex because a rare kind of fault was what created it.
"It is a very complex zone, but an exciting one at that," said Fabrizio Pepe, a geophysicist from the University of Palermo in Italy.
The African, Anatolian, and Eurasian plates make the Western Mediterranean seismically restless. This collision of these three tectonic plates in the area makes the situation complex. To make matters even worse, there is a small chunk of crust called the Adriatic-Ionian microplate is now being pushed to go under the Eurasian plate. Its subduction created a number of volcanoes in the area including Mount Vesuvius.
Previously, a group of scientists studying the underwater volcanic arcs built by the tectonic unrests pointed them to a younger batch of arcs in the south and eastward directions. The arcs seemed like an arrow pointing them to a new set of arcs, prompting the team of Pepe to go out there to search for a new arc 15 kilometers off the coast of Calabaria. They referred to it as the toe of Italy.
Based on the magnetic anomalies, seafloor mapping, and seismic data, the team of researchers was able to track a 722-square-miles of lava flows, hydrothermal chimneys, and volcanic mountains. Hot minerals are spewed out of the chimney-like structures in between the vents of the seafloor. The researchers named the area as the Diamante-Enotrio-Ovidio Volcanic-Intrusive Complex.
The fractures in the seafloor are the reason behind the rising of magma to the surface that paved the way for the formation of the Diamonte-Enotrio-Ovidio complex. It created what seemed like an undersea landscape made of mountainous volcanoes and lava flow. When the sea levels are lower, these volcanic seamounts become plateaus that protrude from underwater.
"They eroded into the flat topped mountains that they are now," Pepe said.
Although the volcanic complex remains inactive at the moment, there are traces of small intrusions of lava on the seafloor. The researchers reported the results of their investigation and published it in the journal Tectonics. The researchers believe that the area could be more active in the future which could then endanger the lives and properties of people. "We are also looking into the possibility of producing geothermal energy from the area," Pepe said.
